Site Navigation

Site Mobile Navigation

Blogtalk: Pro-Clinton Bloggers Boycott Kos

On Friday, it got to be too much for Alegre, a diarist on the flagship liberal blog DailyKos, who frequently writes in support of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“I’ve put up with the abuse and anger because I’ve always believed in what our online community has tried to accomplish in this world,” Alegre wrote Friday evening. “No more.”

Objecting to the tone of attacks against Mrs. Clinton and her supporters on the blog, the diarist called for a “writers strike.”

“This is a strike – a walkout over unfair writing conditions at DailyKos. It does not mean that if conditions get better I won’t ‘work’’ at DailyKos again,” Alegre wrote, promising to come back only “if we ever get to the point where we’re engaging each other in discussion rather than facing off in shouting matches.”
The blogosphere has never been known for its polite, gentle discourse, and while fiercely partisan, being a Democrat does not make one immune from attacks from the lefty blogs (see Lieberman, Joseph I.). But now, the major internal divisions within the Democratic Party seem to be splitting liberal bloggers. So what happens when the unity enforcement mechanism becomes disjointed?

Alegre’s post attracted a strong reaction, both negative and positive. The comment board was shut down about 5.5 hours after it was posted, with 1258 comments.

One user, Sentient, called for a “permanent succession”:

“Why should this site and Kos profit from the traffic we add to DailyKos, and the sense by outsiders that it represents the netroots as a whole?” the blogger asked, adding later, “But I just don’t see how people come back together on a daily basis after a falling out like this.”

Another poster challenged Alegre’s assertion that “DailyKos is not the site it once was thanks to the abusive nature of certain members of our community.”

From jdodsonvls:

The only difference is now we’re attacking a candidate whom YOU feel strongly about.

Sorry. It happens. But if you don’t understand why we dislike her, if you don’t understand that she stood opposed to the blogroots for years, that this community grew into what it is today despite her, not because of her, then you’re right, perhaps this isn’t the blog for you.

You see, decentralized though we are, I’ve always felt that the vast majority of bloggers share a point of view. Out with the old way of doing politics, and in with the new. To many of us, Hillary Clinton, every bit as much as Joe Lieberman, typifies a wing of the Democratic party that is anathema, a wing that is responsible for the party’s downfall, and complicit with the rise of radical conservatism.

Markos Moulitsas, the founder of DailyKos, spoke to Jake Tapper of ABC News about the so-called strike, which he said was really more like a “boycott.”

Many feel that one of the other major liberal blogs, MyDD, tends to attract bloggers more favorable to Mrs. Clinton. If the rift lingers after the primaries, the organizational value of the blogs could be compromised.

Joe Gandelman at The Moderate Voice blog writes: “Where progressive and moderate bloggers and commenters used to get worked up arguing about George Bush, there now a real angry, scolding tone in many comments left by Clinton and Obama supporters.”

He continues: “In short, the strike/boycott is a symptom — and with so many months to go until the Democratic convention, the prognosis for true Democratic Party unity going into the election seems ‘questionable.’”

Most Obama supporters are infantile with little education and manners. I have alerted the NYT before, but several vetting the comments of the readers are Obama people who have infiltrated the NYT. This must stop.

“I’ve put up with the abuse and anger because I’ve always believed in what our online community has tried to accomplish in this world,” Alegre wrote Friday evening. “No more.”

Objecting to the tone of attacks against Mrs. Clinton and her supporters on the blog, the diarist called for a “writers strike.” (lede)

Amazing news item. A wonderful sign that some fairness does exist in this field. This person should be congratulated on behalf of all one-time posting readers who left in anger or in disgust. Some days are really bad. I shudder at the thought of what is happening outside Caucus.

This article brought back the memory of Hill’s tears…poor me, vote for me baaawwwwwa!! I suggest they close down all pro-Hill blogs, sites, videos and empty propaganda, we don’t need to read any more of that. Go Obama 08

Sad to say, but the time for healing has come and gone. The insults, the barbs, the freewheeling mean-spiritedness, have pierced the body politic. Michigan and Florida no longer matter.

Earning the nomination doesn’t matter. Winning is the name of the game. A game of blatant smear and character assassination. Folks desperate, wanting their candidate fixed on the Demo.-Pres. ticket, spinning deceitful tales.

This is what the Democratic Party is today. Ugly, raw, pent-up emotions seized by vengeance from 8 years of Party impotence. Impotence against the Rove_Rumsfeld_Bush_Cheney presidency. A vengeance, turned inward, on its own constituents . . .

We are not headed for a train wreck. We’ve already had it. We’re the train and we’ve wrecked it. The Party is damaged, systemically ruined. No matter who wins the the Democratic nomination or the presidency, we lose.

The hurly, burly is not done. But the battle has already been lost and won.

ABC news reveals yesterday that Senator Barrack Obama has been deeply committed to some crazy, cult-like, anti-American, anti-Semitic, racist church for the past twenty years and this report about cranky bloggers is the headline of the New York Times political page? Senator Obama claims that this church’s lunatic preacher is his lifetime mentor and spiritual advisor. Is the press really going to just let this story go? What is going on in the mainstream media?

This is interesting because I left KO’s exactly because I was severely attacked by people like Allegre.
Who called me many names, including being an anti-Semite, when I opposed Hillary joining with all of the Republicans to support Israel and the US’s continued use of cluster bombing innocent civilian populations. Senator Feinstein sponsored a bill to simply place a moratorium on their use, and she hadthe majority of Democrats behind her-including Obama -and every humanitarian agency in the world.
Hillary said NO, and her supporters don’t want to discuss it – so I’m the bigot??

Foreign policy guides my vote-this time. And Obama gets my vote for that reason alone.
And I strongly suggest he name Claire McCaskill as his VP. As a woman I could support her in a hearbeat, but never Hillary.
Claire’s gracious, but tenacious manners, her civil service and true work experiences- especially her financial background- is first, a woman the entire country can be proud of, and second would be a very compatible dream team for the good of not just America -but for the entire world.

Alegre, like Clinton herself, is typical of the Clinton “Victim Syndrome”.

You see, in Hillaryland, you can lie and invect innuendo with abandon against a member of your own party. You can practice a “scorched earth” policy of destruction of anyone that stands in your way to the Democratic Nomination. You can endorse John McCain over Barack Obama as being ready to be “Commander in Chief”, and it is all ok. But if anyone doesn’t agree with these tactics and calls Clinton on it, they are being “unfair” and suddenly they are victims.
It is a deluded and dishonest mindset. Like their candidate, Hillary Clinton, these Clinton “supporters” just can’t understand why others don’t just fall in line and get with the program that allows Hillary to lie, cheat, and steal her way to the nomination.
This party is DEFINATELY split. The Clintons have seen to it, and are constantly engaged in more and more division. These DLC tactics of divide and conquer have been going on for close to 18 years, and we are sick of it.
The Democratic Nomination process is already over with. Barack Obama has an insurmountable Delegate lead, and he won it fair and square. It is common knowledge that for Hillary to gain the nomination involves some sort of “top down” skullduggery, and that will destroy what is left of the Democratic Party. The Clinton Campaign, with the assistance of a gun shy corporate media, specificaly CNN, continues to move the goal posts while destroying the party in the process.
If the Clinton’s really believe ANY of the young people, which represent the next 50 years of support for the Democratic Party, are going to just go along and get behind Hillary after all this, they are crazy. The Superdelegates are sitting by and watching their party be destroyed. Hillary Clinton is detroying the Party, and supporters like Alegre expect some sort of acceptance. That is the cognitave dissonance that the Clinton Campaign depends on, and is the reason most of her support comes from low information voters. Anyone who actually studies or investigates the issues, and has no “insider” ties to the Clintons, invariably goes with Obama.

I CAN NOT believe that of all the worthy and wonderful articles over there (including those that cover the corruption the MSM is afraid to touch) you’ve bothered with this one!?!?!? How tragic. Why even bother posting about Obama’s call for unity. The NYTimes is determined to trivialize this election.

Has anyone here actually read Alegre’s posts leading up to her boycott? I have, and they consisted of the same baseless, mean-spirited attacks that make it so hard to have a meaningful discourse. This boycott looks more like an attempt at playing the victim to conceal her own bullying.

This is not to say that DailyKos isn’t getting too heated. Frankly, I feel that it is. But Alegre was no victim.

Actually it was worse than this report suggests, really nasty bullying, with sexist stuff too, and not just about Hillary, ‘personal’ type attacks on those who support her. For some time I tried to engage these bullies in dialog, and in the past, when Edwards was also in the race, it was occasionally possible. But when even the so-called ‘front page’ stories started making unproven, unlikely and quickly discredited ugly speculations about her, it was pretty clear that that site has chosen an candidate and a way of supporting him that wasn’t fair either to him, or to the Democratic Party. I guess they’re mainly kids with too much time on their hands and are too free with the nasty expletives. Oh well. There are other places to blog.

MyDD’s recent+recommended diaries list, and comments, are far more vicious than anything coming out of Daily Kos.

In fact, to say that dKos is abusive is to completely ignore pro-Clinton blogs/bloggers like No Quarter, Hillary Is 44, and Taylor Marsh, where the venom for a Democrat flows as freely as on redstate or freerepublic.

President Obama drew criticism on Thursday when he said, “we don’t have a strategy yet,” for military action against ISIS in Syria. Lawmakers will weigh in on Mr. Obama’s comments on the Sunday shows.Read more…